Midnight Freight

The clatter of keys grows silent. November is over and NaNoWriMo is at an end. A typhoon of tortured tales grows still, their limp and pallid forms lie mewling on the dusty ground, their hurried and unnatural births now over. Deadlines and targets are a thing of the past. Some will be counting themselves as winners, having managed to put together 50,000 words. other will count themselves as losers, having fallen short of that lofty goal. I however, have been up to other things. Spending my evening in quiet contemplation, making soup and watching sci-fi from the early 2000s. When it comes to NaNoWriMo the distinction between winner and losers is at best moot and at worst erroneous. I learnt long ago, that the only winning move, is not to play.

This month’s wordascope holds the rare distinction of being finished before time, as opposed to in a mad dash the night before the month ends. By the standards of some of my pieces over the last few years it is quite short, clocking in at just over 830 words. But I said everything I wanted to say and did everything I wanted to do, so I saw no reason to pad it out just for the sake of it. The story is broadly in the sci-fi vein, but it’s mostly background window-dressing to the interactions of the two characters that appear in it. While writing it I took a sudden and unexpected swerve into the realm of romance (an area which I do not frequently explore) and just ran with it. It’s also my first tangling with a same-sex couple. When there is an opportunity to include diversity, it should be embraced, not shied away from. I’m just hoping I haven’t accidentally done anything super offensive or represented any sub-set of society in an unfair light. I had a friend of mine proofread it just to be safe. I’m told it’s all fine and good. But you know what paranoia is like don’t you? You do? How do you know?! WHO TOLD YOU?!